The U.S. healthcare industry is facing an even more significant IT worker shortage than previously thought, and that shortage is slowing efforts to roll out electronic health systems. A new analysis by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) Health Research Institute showed that the shortage of health IT (HIT) workers has healthcare providers scrambling to fill the talent void by recruiting technology specialists from other industries. The PwC report cited a recent survey by the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME) that showed 67% of healthcare CIOs are experiencing IT staff shortages, up from 59% in 2010.
North Kansas City officials strongly denied Tuesday that there was any plan to sell North Kansas City Hospital to HCA Inc.The city hit back against statements in an affidavit filed Monday by former hospital board Chairman Terry Myers that he was approached by Clay County Commissioner Gene Owen to help a team that was working on a sale to HCA. "The city of North Kansas City has no plan in place -- and never did have a plan in place -- to sell the North Kansas City Hospital to any specific entity," the city said in a statement. "While the North Kansas City Hospital board of trustees and their lawyers would have you think otherwise, there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to these allegations."
The numbers didn't add up. Over and over, Daniel Yuan, a medical doctor and statistician, couldn't understand the results coming out of the lab, a prestigious facility at Johns Hopkins Medical School funded by millions from the National Institutes of Health. "At first, it was like, 'Okay — but I don't really see it,' " Yuan recalled. "Then it started to smell bad." His suspicions arose as reports of scientific misconduct have become more frequent and critics have questioned the willingness of universities, academic journals and the federal government, which pays for much of the work, to confront the problem.
CLEVELAND, Ohio-- The Cleveland Clinic and Community Health Systems, a Nashville-based organization that operates more than 130 hospitals nationwide, today announced a partnership designed to allow the two institutions to share clinical and operations expertise to improve care and efficiency.
The collaboration, in the works for about six months, is the Clinic's first partnership with a for-profit healthcare system of this size.
"This gives us a national footprint," Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. Cosgrove said that Community Health Systems (CHS) approached the Clinic about the partnership, interested in getting help from the Clinic on quality improvement and standardization of care.
By the time Astra Augustus left Virtua Memorial Hospital in New Jersey after the last of four surgeries, she'd run up about $255,000 in bills. At first, Augustus said, she thought she was lucky. Virtua gave her a charity discount, to $30,530. Then she got statements from the doctors who treated her in the hospital, adding $18,000. "I didn't know who to pay first," Augustus said. Virtua sued last month after she fell behind in her $400-a-month installment plan. While the nonprofit hospital had been generous, she said, the debt is still overwhelming for someone with a monthly income of $2,200.
In recent years, consumers have increasingly been encouraged to factor cost into their medical decisions -- by, for example, avoiding unnecessary tests, buying generic drugs and reducing visits to the emergency room. The hope is that a patient better educated and more engaged in his or her health decisions will choose options that will both promote better health and decrease costs. But a study published last month in the journal Health Affairs found that a majority of patients were reluctant to consider cost when making medical decisions, nor did they want their doctors to do so. Researchers investigated the attitudes of 211 focus group participants in Washington and Santa Monica, Calif. Participants were asked to weigh their own out-of-pocket costs as well as the costs borne by their insurer. The participants, researchers said, did not generally understand how insurance works and felt little personal responsibility for helping to solve the problem of rising health-care costs. They were unlikely to accept a less expensive treatment option, even if it was nearly as effective as a more expensive choice